Welcome to Bats Class

We will update this class page weekly and include photos in the Class Gallery to show what we have been up to.

Our Home Learning expectations include daily reading, as well as having the option to choose an activity from the grid to support your child's learning at school. 

Our Topic Web shows information about our learning each term.

Term 2

Welcome back to the second half-term of Year 1. This is always an exciting but busy term which I know the children will enjoy and thrive upon. I hope you all had a restful half-term.

Our topic this term is History of Toys. I have asked the children to bring in one favourite toy that they would like to discuss with their peers. I am also extending the invite to any parents, carers, grandparents or family members that would like to send in a picture/video of their favourite toy, or come into class and share it with the children. 

Our PE days continue to be Tuesday and Thursday this term.

Week 1

We have managed to squeeze a lot into our shorter first week back. The children are full of excitement about our new topic and have been very eager about their learning this week.

In English this week, the children went on a toy hunt to locate Bat's lost toys. They then created a poster that we could display if we lost our favourite toy and the children did some writing to support this. The children loved writing firework words in coloured pens too, and they extended this by creating firework pictures to go wth their words. 

In History this week we launched our new topic, History of Toys, and the children started discussing the past, present, olden days in relation to the selection of toys through the ages that we now have in the classroom. The children have enjoyed exploring them and I have been very impressed with the vocabulary that the children are starting to use in terms of how the toys look as well as asking questions about their age, condition and use. 

In Science, we launched our new topic Everyday Materials by going on a materials hunt around the classroom. We identified objects made of wood, glass, plastic and metal.

In Maths we used any resources we could find (even toys and small world objects) to create an addition number sentence. We will continue to talk a lot about number bonds to 10, as well as the parts and whole of a number sentence.

In Art the children created firework pictures and produced a beautiful piece of art to reflect on Remembrance Day, which you may have seen them show in the family assembly on Friday.

Term 1

It has been lovely to meet all the children this week. They have settled into their new classroom really well and have shown themselves to be eager, keen learners. We cannot wait to spend the year with them!

Our topic this term is Dinosaurs.

Our PE days this term will be on Tuesday and Thursday, so please make sure the children come into school dressed in their PE kit on those days.

Week 2

It has been a busy week in Bats class. The children have been wonderful at learning their new routines and are showing us how independent they already are, especially with evidencing their own learning. Well done Bats!

In English, the children have been introduced to our new story, Tom and the Island of the Dinosaurs; and they have made a great start to learning our model text. They have created small world set-ups with their own dinosaur puppets to show the story, as well as ordering pictures and writing sentences about what is happening. 

In Maths, we have been sorting objects, and representing objects with counters and digits; as well as demonstrating their counting forwards (backwards will come next week!).

In Science we have begun to look at the seasons by sorting pictures into the correct seasons, as well as creating our own weather diary that we will report on each day. 

In our Reading lessons this week we discussed our favourite books and recommended them to our friends as well as visiting the school library to choose a new book to bring home.

In RE we have looked at the Creation Story, and have completed some sequencing of this to show our understanding.

The highlight of our week was being introduced to our Year 6 buddies on Friday. We spent a lovely time playing with them and getting to know all about them. The children drew a lovely picture to give each of them, which told them a little about themselves and their likes. I am sure you have heard all about it this weekend!

Week 3

The children continue to amaze me with how well they have settled into Year 1. They are a class full of kindness, resilience and great fun.

In English the children have continued to emerse themselves in our Tom and the Dinosaurs story by using newly learnt vocabulary, such as magnificent, soared and enormous; and creating sentences with these words in.

In Maths we have been reinforcing counting our numbers forwards and backwards; identifying one more and writing numbers as words. 

In Science we have looked at Summer this week; creating Summer pictures and models and discussing what weather and activities are typical for the season of Summer. Next week we will be looking at Autumn. If you have any empty plastic bottles please could you send them in as these will be used to make our own rain gauges to collect and measure rainfall. 

In Art we learnt about primary and secondary colours and mixed paint to create our own colour wheel. With our buddies on Friday we learnt how to lighten and darken the original colour (hue) to make shades and tints.

In History we created our own timeline for the dinosaurs who lived in the 3 main time periods of the Triassic era, the Jurassic era and the Cretaceous era. Ask us to order them ...

Week 4

The highlight of our week was Languages Day on Friday. We learnt all about Ukraine and the Philippines – speaking the language, making flags, finding them on a globe, dancing and singing. The children had a great go at singing an Ukrainian song about the weather, a link to our Science topic. 

PC Sue came to visit us in class to tell us all about what the police do to help us. She read a great story called PC Ben and answered our many, many questions!

Week 5

In RE this week we created some beautiful stained glass window pictures of the story of The Creation.

In Science we made some rain gauges to measure the rainfall. We have been talking about the weather in the different seasons. This week we focused on Winter and drew some Winter pictures and explored 'cold Winter words'.

In English we created our own class story based on Tom and the Dinosaurs - ask us about Benjy and the Desert of Zebras!

In Maths we learnt how to use the 'crocodile signs' for greater than, less than and equal to. We used many different resources to help understand this, including building the signs with sticks outside.  We created our own number lines both inside the classroom and outside. The children have become very independent at showing me their understanding of place value with their own choice of maths resources. 

Week 6

In Maths this week we have started learning about addition - ask us what a part whole model is? These models will help us visualise the number sentences that we will start writing for addition.

In English the children planned and wrote their own stories based on our original model text Tom and the Island of Dinosaurs. The children were so proud to become authors and many enjoyed writing their own books this week - some about Autumn, some about dinosaurs and others based purely on their wonderful imaginations. 

In Art the children started their seasons pictures - keep a look out for the finished pieces next week! They also used pastels to create pumpkins pictures from some Autumn still life.

In Science the children made wind catchers so that we could see the direction of the wind. Alongside this we looked at the mixture of weather we see in Spring, as well as discovering the signs of Spring from baby lambs to new shoots. 

In Computing we were very excited to work with our buddies on the laptops. We practised our mouse skills by creating a self-portrait using a paint program and started to practice our keyboard skills by typing our names too. In class all week the children have been using keyboards to type some tricky words - we have learnt where the letter keys are on the keyboard and which uppercase letter matches the lowercase letter. 

Week 7

In English we have started to learn how to write a great set of instructions. Mrs Eltham needed our help to make a jam sandwich; we had to make sure our insturctions were very clear. This week we have learnt what 'bossy verbs' are - ask us about them.

In History this week we have done our own research on a T-Rex, making notes and then answering questions about it. Ask us about a new fact we learnt about a T-Rex!

We learnt some talk tactics this week, which will help us have some great discussions with our peers. We learnt hand signals which signify that we want to join in with the discussion. 

We met our buddies again this week, and they helped us to write a story on the laptop so that we could practice our keyboard and typing skills.

Week 8

We have had a great end to the term this week. It was lovely to meet you all properly at parents evening also. We made our own sandwiches this week and then in English wrote our own set of instructions on how to make them. We have been working really hard on our handwriting too.

In History we finished our topic on dinosaurs by taking part in a quiz and then excavating dinosaur poo just like Mary Anning did. Investigating this evidence allowed us to discover what diet that dinosaur had and potentially what dinosaur it could have been.

In Maths this week we looked at number bonds to 10 and started writing addition number sentences. Ask us all the number bonds to 10 we know ... remembering these will really help us with our maths when we come back after half term.

In RE we looked at the celebration of Diwali; we created our own rangoli designs using art resources as well as coloured pegs - these really help with our fine motor skills too. We also used small parts to create beautiful mehndi designs like Hindu women display on their arms, hands and feet.

 We would like to wish you all a very restful, happy and healthy half term; and look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday 4th November.